It’s been 100 days since Nancy Guthrie disappeared. Her case upended Hollywood’s portrayal of solving crime

A combination of images captured by a security camera show what the FBI describes as an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie's front door the morning of her disappearance on February 1. (Pima County Sheriff's Department/Handout/Reuters via CNN Newsource)

It’s been 100 days since Nancy Guthrie was tragically abducted and neither the police, pundits nor online amateur sleuths appear to have a clue where she is.

Despite hundreds of sheriff’s deputies, FBI agents and volunteers searching for the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show cohost Savannah Guthrie, her whereabouts remain unknown since February 1, when a masked man armed with a handgun appeared on security camera footage at her Arizona home.

The case has garnered global attention and a number of vocal critics blaming investigators for a lack of progress in quickly locating Guthrie and her abductor.

But for many experts steeped in the intricacies of missing persons cases, the Guthrie investigation also has raised questions about whether the general public has been conditioned to hold outsized and unrealistic expectations of law enforcement’s capabilities.

‘The CSI effect’

More than half a million people are reported missing in the U.S. each year, according to the U.S. Justice Department, yet almost none receive the type of publicity and public scrutiny given to the Guthrie investigation.

Frustration exhibited by some over the lack of resolution in the high-profile case has resurfaced a concept law enforcement and academic researchers call “the CSI effect.”

Named for the hit CBS crime drama, it refers to the potential for the public, including juries, to form a distorted view about criminal investigations based on how law enforcement work is portrayed on television.

“In recent years, the television program CSI and its spin-offs have portrayed forensic science as high-tech magic, solving crimes quickly and unerringly. Of course, CSI is only fiction,” wrote N.J. Schweitzer and Michael J. Saks in the American Bar Association’s journal “Jurimetrics.”

“One forensic scientist estimates that 40% of the ‘science’ on CSI does not exist, and most of the rest is performed in ways that crime lab personnel can only dream about.”

And while crime dramas tend to incorporate a bevy of clues that investigators (and viewers) must try to piece together with the aid of cutting-edge technology, in the Guthrie case, like so many other missing persons investigations, the clues just don’t exist.

“The reliance we have today on technology, an abundance of high-quality security cameras – Ring Doorbell cameras, traffic cameras, cameras on buses and public transportation, license plate readers and other sensors – give us the sense that most crimes can be solved within a week,” said John Miller, CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst. “In this case, we are in a desert. The houses are far apart, far from the road and on a road with no lights. Police license plate readers are fewer and nowhere nearby.”

Miller said these challenges don’t mean the case won’t be solved, but “it does mean they just don’t have the things that can make that happen faster.”

The ‘maddening’ speculation

The Guthrie investigation also has brought with it another characteristic of high-profile cases that sources say has elicited both groans of annoyance and genuine concern due to its ability to impact the public: the unhesitating opinions of pundits with large audiences.

While many television and podcast analysts have been extremely careful to only note possible theories of what happened to Guthrie based on their past investigative expertise, others have gone full bore in boldly declaring their view of what occurred.

Those widely divergent and confidently stated assertions have included: Guthrie’s abduction was a robbery gone wrong; she was kidnapped for ransom; she was taken to Mexico; she’s still in the Tucson area; the kidnapping was done by a group; the kidnapper was acting solo; the kidnapper was sophisticated; the kidnapper was clumsy.

One analyst even declared the kidnapping the work of a lone amateur despite having described it as a sophisticated group of abductors just a couple weeks earlier.

And one crime enthusiast reporter went so far as to say the main suspect in the case was a member of the Guthrie family – a claim for which she was quickly lambasted by some in the public and law enforcement, who insisted the Guthries are victims and very cooperative.

Even President Donald Trump weighed in while addressing reporters, concluding the suspect had one of two completely contradictory qualities: “Somebody either knew what they were doing very well, or they were rank amateurs.”

Law enforcement sources have warned speculation amid an ongoing missing person case can actually be detrimental when assistance from the public is so critical. Because if audiences believe law enforcement has figured things out, they may be less attentive to their surroundings and feel less of an inclination to phone in tips.

“I just can’t figure out why the hell people who previously worked in law enforcement and know how hard it is would speak with such certainty about a case they have nothing to do with,” said one law enforcement source involved in the Guthrie case. “It’s maddening. We’re not idiots.”

‘It’s not helpful to the case’

To be fair, some of the criticism of investigators may have been self-inflicted.

For example, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos admitted early on he would have handled some things differently, including prematurely releasing the crime scene before federal investigators conducted an exhaustive search.

And then there’s the hunt for the gloves the suspect seen on video may have been wearing. A large-scale search effort was launched in the Tucson area to see if the abductor may have discarded the gloves after Guthrie’s abduction. About 16 different gloves were located and analyzed, but authorities later said most of them were actually worn and discarded by earlier search parties scouring the area for Guthrie.

The case also has highlighted a rift between federal and local law enforcement in a way rarely seen in modern history.

FBI Director Kash Patel, whose agency is assisting but not in charge of the Guthrie case, recently took to the airwaves to launch a broadside against the Pima County Sheriff’s Department handling of the case, taking credit for progress in the investigation, and slamming what he viewed as the agency’s lack of cooperation and its use of a private laboratory to initially analyze evidence rather than the bureau’s Quantico, Virginia, facilities.

“While the FBI director was not on scene,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement responding to Patel’s criticism, “coordination with the bureau began without delay.”

Sources involved in the investigation told CNN the FBI and local officials were actually working closely, despite the criticism coming from the bureau’s leadership in Washington. Law enforcement experts also seized on Patel’s comments on conservative commentator Sean Hannity’s podcast as counterproductive.

“It’s not helpful to the case, it harms the working relationship between the two agencies where trust is essential, and it undermines the public confidence,” Miller said. “Even if the criticism is valid, and that is up for debate, the FBI director cannot tout the FBI’s dedicated support for local law enforcement on his social media feeds every day and then throw a partner agency under the bus the first time a high-profile case gets hard.”

‘We will never stop looking for you’

While 100 gut-wrenching days for the Guthrie family have passed since Nancy’s disappearance, it is far too soon to label this a cold case.

Behind the scenes, law enforcement continues to analyze DNA found at Guthrie’s home for possible clues – a process that can take months. Authorities say they also continue to try to identify the location where items on the suspect in the video were purchased, including his backpack and clothing.

Of course, there is also potentially more investigators are doing that they are strategically not publicizing. In fugitive cases, it’s common for authorities to hold certain details close to the vest as they attempt to home in on a suspect.

Law enforcement experts say solving the case at this stage may come down to continued tenacity by the investigative team, the addition of fresh eyes who may be able to look at the existing evidence differently, a tip from a member of the public, or, yes, pure luck.

Meanwhile, the Guthries are prayerfully holding out hope for answers amid their grief.

In a moving social media post on Mother’s Day, Savannah Guthrie appealed to anyone with information on Nancy’s whereabouts to call authorities, writing: “We miss you with every breath. We will never stop looking for you. We will never be at peace until we find you. We need help. Someone knows something that can make the difference. Call 1800CALLFBI.”